A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul is a wonderful book, included in The Modern Library Top 100 books (at : http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/... ) and it is 928th on The Greatest Books of All Time site

In fact, I had such a great time reading it, that I only ended it after a long delay: I never wanted to part with Mr Biswas, his family and Trinidad Island. As it happens, I identified with the main character.

A House for Mr Biswas is a Great Book and an immense joy to read...

I had read A Bend in The River, also by V.S. Naipaul- before A House for Mr Biswas and found it as great a joy to read..

Even those Nobel Prize folks manage to get things right once in a while, and Naipul is certainly one of the most gifted and important writers of the second half of the twentieth century. "A Bend in the River," both one of his better novels and one of his two most well-known, offers a window into the thinking and experiences of Salim, an Indian-Muslim trader from coastal Africa who ventures into an unnamed African country (that is implicitly Mobuto's Zaire) during the post-colonial period.

The novel is told entirely from Salim's point-of-view, which may or may not have been Naipul's, and some of Salim's ideas about Africa may seem less than enlightened, but the key factor here (which is too often lost on critics) is that they are subjectively true to the narrator. Salim is a complex character (although he often perceives himself as a simple or even naive one) with some stellar attributes (loyalty, probity) and others that are far less appealing. The minor characters are vividly rendered and among the highlights of the work.

There are also gems of odd wisdom every few pages, wisdom that may or may not be true, but displays a particular Naipulian stamp. For example, Salim's French lover, speaking of her husband's ex-wife, says, "They say men should look at the lover of the girl they intend to marry.... Girls who [marry divorced men] should consider the wife a man has discarded or worn out, and know they are not going to do much better...."

Naipul is writing consciously in the footsteps of Conrad, and the novel is definitely one of ideas, which may render it a slower read to some readers. But Naipul's ideas, whether correct or misguided, are always good material for reflection. His descriptive writing is among the most compelling in the English language. I am candidly a bit puzzled that other reviewers found this novel a difficult read -- I re-read it this week in three sittings and the pages truly breezed by.

Read with an open mind, "A Bend in the River" is the work of a literary master at the top of his gave. I recommend this novel most strongly.

I'd have loved to writ a detailed review of this book. Since the day I bought it in a pre-owned book shop till today, it was always on my mind. It was my first Naipaul book. Many say that it's not his best one, and I see why he keeps his readers hooked.
It's a story of a Salim, an Indian, who travels to Africa to try his luck and make some money and identity for himself. The story progresses with history of Africa, how the unnamed country undergoes the changes under rulers in post-colonial years. Salim, as an outsider observes it and without realizing becomes an inescapable part of it. The book is mostly about the daily lives of the shopkeeper, his quest to be something and be safe, his companions and their lives. The Africans don't make protagonist here.

For me the best part was the interpretation of man's quest of being someone important, his ambitions. I see all the characters of the story trying to get there : the President, a big man, going beyond measures and any logic, just to become a powerful person. Then Indar, a childhood friend of Salim, who after losing his wealth during the rebels, searching for his prominence, mostly in the Uniform of government. There's Ferdinand, always finding something superior about himself, and playing it downright at every chance (except in the end, he turns out very matured person there) Zabeth, mother of Ferdinand, equipped with mysterious powers Africans are so well known for, making her living by merchandising daily needed articles. And Salim himself, an educated person with high aims, unable to achieve his goals who comes to this town near the bend in the river, accepting it and almost rooted there when these all characters come to him with their stories, provoking him, compelling him to be something else than what he is.

The book is opulent with philosophical dialogues and thoughts. I have kept marker handy all the time after first half. The struggle of man to find peace, either to enjoy his status quo or to pursue his dreams is man's ultimate desire. The upheavals in history and rulers can disturb this basic need and how far it can impact the society is portrayed vividly. I found it quite complex, weaving mesh of history, philosophy, ethnicity, societal and modern times, with less of story and much of impact, something I love to read.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it

A Bend in the River is considered Naipaul’s masterpiece and I would agree. It is a slow burn and the drama is muted. I was reminded most of a Graham Greene or Gabriel Marcia Marquez style of writing while reading this one.

In this story, a modern day version of Heart of Darkness, Salim is the protagonist. He is of Indian Muslim origin from East Africa and sees few economic prospects at home. He eventually moves to this unnamed country in central Africa - most likely modeled after Zaïre, probably in the 1960’s. A business friend says Salim could open up a business in a town that lies along the bend in river, probably the Congo. So Salim drives half way across Africa and opens up a parts and trading post. His man servant and aide is Mettie, a local young man. They develop a strong rapport over the years.

The backdrop of the story is that a dictator has taken over the national government. Chapter by chapter and year by year the regional stability declines and the government begins nationalizing businesses. Salim is initially spared some of the chaos and indignity directed at the native African populace. He travels to Europe unsure of what to do.

By the last chapter, when Salim returns from his sojourn, the situation on the ground has become chaotic. He looks for help when he is trapped in an Orwellian nightmare — based on on the illegal ivory trade. He manages to find help in an adversary but if Salim is to survive he must abandon Mettie.

6 stars. Beautifully written. Naipaul is masterful in using Salim as the eyes and ears of the story but making his character three dimensional — mostly honest but somewhat naive. Usually a step too slow to profit from what was happening around him.

Why do people read this creep?

Why do they indulge him, give him prizes, accolades, titles? How is this man's being the darling of the literary establishment not screaming to the world of a huge problem that we have in our priorities, in our regard, in our purported striving for equality or, I don't know, something.

Here is a man who writes 19th Century sentiment - really, more of an 18th Marquis de Sadian sentiment - in the middle of the 20th, and no one in the establishment that doles out Nobels, Bookers, and knighthoods, seems to mind. Here is a man who apparently brutally beats his own mistress, but instead of going to jail and being forgotten there, like he should, he exemplifies post-colonial writing. The hell, world?

So, is the man actually a good writer? Yeah, I guess he is. I did finish the book, aside from an undisclosed amount of glossing, after all. Is he a better writer than the women writers he derides? Eh, nope. Is he Nobel-worthy? I can't answer that because in my opinion half the Nobel laureates out there weren't, but he's no Nabokov, okay?

That's not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that this man is harmful, destructive. not in the passive well-he-does-no-good-to-anyone-and-is-an-ass sort of way, but in the actual, intentional, egomaniacal sort of way that actively goes out there and makes the world a slightly worse place than it's been before. His books, and the establishment's promotion of them, actually outright wreck the world. They say that loving your wife and caring about what she thinks is stunting (yes, he says that, or his main character and narrator does), and that beating your mistress is a natural result of jealousy towards her husband. They imply that a little nobody with zero personality can automatically get the good-looking girl, and that he can then spit at her, and this is a cathartic scene.

So here is my call out to the men and especially women of this world - don't rate his books highly, don't recommend them, don't forgive them based upon the 'beauty of the style'. The beauty isn't sufficient, and the harm is great.

I always find it difficult to talk about the books I really like. Especially so if it is a Naipaul book. I read The Bend again this year and found it much more ensorcelling than first time around . I guess what is so appealing about the book is its sense of diligence, a discipline which attempts to faithfully reflect the emerging world in Africa, as it is. No more no less. Perhaps, this is why, even after half a century and million more theses written on Africa, it still reflects the essence of Africa as none of them do.

I suppose most paperback readers find it inane or even boring. But, bear in mind it's not a transit read. It's not a fiction of plot or story. It is a narrative of reality. And like all realities that are known to man, has no beginning or ending. It is a snapshot of a typical third world problem ie a recently independent state or culture desparately trying to hold onto something as its own in the wake of emerging post-modernism. But it never has or had anything of its own, anything that would give it an identity in the contemporary world apart from the history of having been a colony. Therefore it tries to manufacture a past – leaders, tribes, dances, cameraderie. Oh! the vanities, the denials, the insecurities, amidst all that is forming and unforming, changing choices, conflicting values. But it is what it is.

Then there is the beauty of Naipaul prose. God! How it flows. Delicate, sublime, perfect yet letting the reader to make his own mind without patronizing or simplifying the sentiment. What I found most incredible in the book is the style used to pastiche the complex reality, so unhurriedly, so gracefully; as the book moves forward, it feels like a wave slowly falling and receding on a shore – adding something to the before, yet taking away something after; letting all the voices to speak on their own terms, to express their own realities to ultimately add up a grand reality that none of them can access in toto.

Here is a wonderful instance – Indar is so ashamed of his third world identity that he desparately wants to trample his own past… ‘It isn’t easy to turn your back on the past. It isn’t something you can decide to do just like that. It is something you arm yourself for, or grief will ambush and destroy you.

And Raymond with his first world citizenship, so much yearns for the True Africa that his own past has no bearing on his personal life. This leads to his wife's discontent and her confusion. Here's Raymond musing on Africa.. I was sitting in my room and thinking with sadness about all the things that have gone unrecorded. Do you think we can ever get to know the truth about what has happened in Africa in the last hundred or even fifty years? All the wars, all the rebellions, all the leaders, all the defeats?

It doesn’t occur to you when you are reading it but as you move along, as the impressions of their characters are better formed , suddenly, somewhere in the next chapter perhaps, it occurs to you , that these two completely different men from completely different worlds are so unknowingly seeking each other’s past. They are only allowed to seek, ...Indar seducing Yvette or Raymond wanting to be Mommsen of Africa .., but never find. But they cant give up.

Hence the world is what it is, always in movement.

My copy of this book is a POB (previously owned book). There are a lot of scribbles using different colors of highlighters (pink, yellow and green). In one of the pages is a name: Danielle Sidari. I googled her name yesterday and one of these days I will invite her to be my friend in Facebook. Who knows?

Anyway, it is my first time to read a book with a lot of scribbles. Danielle is not a bad reader. Rather her comments and the phrases she underlined seem to indicate that she is smart. There is just a page (p 191) where she wrote: "Ironic" and this is the part where the narrator, Salim says that he finds adultery as horrible when in fact he is sleeping with a friend's wife, Yvette. Danielle seemed to have missed what Naipaul wrote on page 197, just 6 pages away from the line she finds ironic:

"That (adultery) was my pride. It was also my shame, to have reduced my manhood just to that. There were times, especially during slack periods in the shop, when I sat at my desk (Yvette's photographs in the drawer) and found myself mourning. Mourning, in the midst of physical fulfillment which could not have been more complete! There was a time when I wouldn't have thought it possible."

However, this novel is a lot more than adultery. This is the 1979 novel that established V. S. Naipaul, 2001 Nobel laurate, as a literary force. This is about an unnamed African country (they say it is Democratic Republic of Congo previously known as Zaire) after it gained independence from Belgium in June 1960. As for its theme, the opening line seems to be saying it all: The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. The transfer of power from Belgium to the "Big Man" (they say this is President Mabutu Sese Seko) is a struggle in itself that reminds me of the transfer of power from Marcos to Aquino in 1986. But life has to go on and for me this is the overall theme of this book: the changing of time. There is a very nice allegory that opens the second chapter "The New Domain":

"If you look at a column of ants on the march you will see that there are some who are stragglers or have lost their way. The column has no time for them; it goes on. Sometimes the stragglers die. But even this has no effect on the column. There is a little disturbance around the corpse, which is eventually carried off- and then it appears so light. And all the times the great busyness continues, and the apparent socialibility, that rite of meeting and greeting which ants travelling in opposite directions, to and from their nest, perform without fail."

The above passage reminds me of how I was fascinated watching ants when I was a small child.

This book is almost perfect but there is just one line that spoiled it for me. On page 186, I lost a bit of respect for Naipaul as he wrote:

n  "But if women weren't stupid the world wouldn't go round"n

Danielle put a pink question mark on this.

I hate sexist people. I do not have respect for men who belittle women. I have many women in my life and I love them all: my mother, my (only) wife, my daughter, my sister, my mother-in-law, my sisters-in-law, my grandmother, my aunts, my many cousins, my friends, my officemates, etc. Hence, I am giving this a two stars less than amazing. For the love of women in my humble life.

"The world is what it is. Men who are nothing, who allow themselves to be nothing, have no place in it." - V S Naipaul

************

Naipaul's narrator Salim is a young Muslim Indian who grew up on the east coast of Africa. Looking to make his way in the world he moves to central Africa along the Congo. He buys a shop and flat and begins a business. The town is a former European colony ravaged by a war of independence. The buildings and parks are in ruins, now occupied by refugees from the surrounding villages.

Salim is critical of the social instability, poverty and aimlessness around him. Although not yet a man of the world his thoughts resemble those of Naipaul. Rebellion threatening the countryside the war is put down by Big Man, second president of the new nation, likely a stand-in for Mobutu and Zaire. Peace and prosperity return to the town as Big Man's army trades in ivory and gold.

Father Huismans translates the two thousand year old latin poetry inscribed on the steamboat dock: 'God approves the mingling of people in Africa', taken from Virgil's Aeneid. Salim discovers the original poem said: 'The gods might not approve'. A friend, Indar, recently graduated from a world university, lectures on New Africa in the college. He reflects Naipaul's alienation on arrival from a colony.

Salim becomes obsessed with Yvette, the wife of a white professor connected to Big Man, the first real love of his life. Brothels and adultery were part of the world of Naipaul as was Africa where he taught in 1966. Salim and Yvette were refugees from other places trapped in a past imperial backwater. Their lives mirror those of Naipaul and the mistress he met prior to writing this book.

The economic boom is over as Big Man fights more rebels in the bush. Salim visits Nazruddin in London, a family friend who sold him his shop and whose daughter he is expected to marry. He finds the world crowded with Africans and Asians, living as they did before they arrived. Returning to Africa he faces crooked bureaucrats and police. The story races forward towards a terrifying conclusion.

Naipaul didn't win the Booker Prize for this novel but it was short listed. There were reactions from critics who said he perpetuated the European myths in his depiction of a post-colonial decay. Edward Said argued he was "a witness for the western prosecution". Naipaul may have been seen as having ethnocentric views but wrote honestly of what he saw. And as he said, the world is what it is.

Beautiful, multi-layered story, set in an unnamed African country, but very simular to the Congo or Zaïre in the time of dictator Mobutu. The storyteller, Salim, is of Indian origin, and takes over a shop in a town, deep inland, (by a bend in the river), just after independence. He observes the waves of unrest and uncertainty and the rise of a Great Man in the capital.

You can read this novel as a lucid political story (the making of a gruesome dictator, and how different people cope with it), a fine psychological story (the search for its own place in life and the desillusions accompanying it), an exploration of the African soul (though Naipaul can be very stereotypical about that), and a study on cultural interaction or non-interaction.

This novel reminded me of the better work of Graham Greene, but without the morality-layer. There also was a bit too much of Conrads 'Heart of Darkness' ("the horror, the horror") in it. I know he hasn't a good reputation when it comes to racism and other issues, but I definitely have to read more by Naipaul!

Pouco romance. Pouca emoção.
Muita política. Muita vida africana.
Grande aborrecimento. Desisti a meio.

A Bend in the River begins with one of the most devastating opening lines ever written in a novel. It goes like this: The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. Upon reflection, the line sounds like it came out of a speech by a ruthless dictator. Or it could exemplify the unspoken ethical code according to which the people of a country live. Here, it is Naipaul’s way of introducing the reader to the brutal landscape of post-colonial Africa, seen through the eyes of Salim, a young Muslim descendant of Arab invaders or traders.

Salim buys a shop in a far-off African country which has seen some violence between local tribes, to commence his career as a trader. For Salim, his career as a trader in a new country is also an escape from his family and community which he finds constricting and unsafe. There is that sense of anomie and insecurity in Salim that are recurring characteristics among Naipaul’s characters. “I had to break away. I couldn’t protect anyone; no one could protect me …..” Salim laments.

Violence is a regular occurrence in the new town where Salim becomes a trader. But the immigrants (Arabs, Indians, Greeks, Belgians and Italians) stay away from it and learn to live with it as Africans butcher each other. They postpone the inevitable through bribes or plain ignorance. But they know the violence is bound to reach their doorstep eventually. Everyone who lives in the town right from Salim to the powerless white mentor of the ruthless president (who is called the big man) is scarred in some way or the other. And they’re all doomed, none of them seem to have a clue about the future - what they would do or where they would go if they were forced to leave Africa.

Naipaul does not have a particularly good opinion of Africa. The Africans in the novel are portrayed as people who had to repress a part of themselves to adapt to the new European way after colonization. But only some are successful, many of them want to go back to the “way of the bush”. The slaves owned by Salim’s family do not seem to want to gain freedom while the African who forcefully takes over Salim’s business struggles with his new position as a master. The new president of the country imposes his authority on the nation through extreme acts of violence. Naipaul seems to suggest that one of the reasons for the violence could be sexual repression.

In The Enigma of Arrival (Naipaul’s autobiographical novel) the main character who finds fulfillment during his life in a vast English manor becomes insecure when Mr. Phillip, the able servant of the manor dies. He sees it as the beginning of the end of the secure life of the manor. In An Area of Darkness, Naipaul senses the end of Europe and the beginning of the third-world as his ship reaches Greece. For the people in the town who are not African, the withdrawal of Europe from Africa is the end of their secure life.

Naipaul gives the reader a sense of what it is like to be a small expendable man in a continent on the verge of anarchy. His writings about colonized people are neither sympathetic nor overtly sentimental. He does not see them through a prism. He sees them as they are – wounded, rootless and constantly adapting to change as worlds and cultures collide. A Bend in the River is a bleak novel. But it is the best Naipaul that I have read so far.

The news that V.S. Naipal had won the Nobel Prize for Literature came shortly after the shocking events of 9-11. The Wall Street Journal hailed the news and editorialized that Naipal was especially worthy as a third world author who embraced the values of the west. Quoting A BEND IN THE RIVER, the Journal argued that Naipal's message is that men in the third world should be judged by the same standards as men in the industrialized west.

For some reason, the Journal's assessment of A BEND IN THE RIVER was on my mind as I read it the past several days.

It does seem likely that Naipal would have sympathy for the notion that humankind everywhere should be judged by the same standards. He favors that those standards should reflect certain, not all, western political values. This is most vivid as he rejects the common view that everything about colonialism in Africa was evil, even offering an apology for slavery that is reminiscent of Aristotle's defense of slavery in the Ethics. (Aristotle describes the slave's role in a happy household as one of respect and importance . . . huh?* But Naipal describes traditional slavery in east Africa in similar terms.)

But that is not Naipaul's central message. A BEND IN THE RIVER explores the Hobbesian view that, in his natural state, each man is at war with every other man. That state of nature has been realized in times of civil war in post-colonial central Africa and Naipal's depiction of it is terrifying. Hobbes' solution to this horrifying natural state is for men to surrender their autonomy to a strong king who is given near absolute authority in exchange for order, security and safety. This solution has been attempted in post-colonial central Africa. Naipal's "Big Man" is just such a leader. But in late 20th century central Africa, he cannot guarantee his own safety against tribalism and violence, much less the safety of the populace. His government becomes only slightly less horrifying than no government at all.

When I search for a message, I conclude that Naipal is wondering about the role of institutions in moderating the behavior of humans. He acknowledges that the institutions of colonialism protected the populace against violence, whereas the post-colonial politics of central Africa have failed to create such institutions. This is not an argument for colonialism. Rather, it is an inquiry about institutions and their role in protecting humankind from our natural state, as Hobbes' envisions it.

*Postscript: I am reading Melzer’s Philosophy Between the Lines currently. He causes me to question whether this statement of Aristotle’s is an example of esoteric writing. That is, Aristotle did not actually believe what he wrote in this regard, but wrote it for the ‘good ordering of society’ and it, therefore, constitutes a “noble lie”. Exoteric/esoteric writing is a challenge for casual readers of philosophy like me. I do not have time to become a full time scholar, which might be the only way to reliably discern exoteric from esoteric philosophy.